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Pigs are any animals from the genus Sus, within the family Suidae. This includes domestic pigs and their wild ancestor the Eurasian boar. Pigs are native to Eurasia and Africa and are highly social and intelligent animals. With over 1 billion alive today, domestic pigs are among the most populous large mammals. Pigs are omnivores that can consume a wide variety of foods and are frequently used in human medical research due to their biological similarities to humans.

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32 views3 pages

Jump To Navigation Jump To Search: This Article Is About The Genus. For Other Uses, See

Pigs are any animals from the genus Sus, within the family Suidae. This includes domestic pigs and their wild ancestor the Eurasian boar. Pigs are native to Eurasia and Africa and are highly social and intelligent animals. With over 1 billion alive today, domestic pigs are among the most populous large mammals. Pigs are omnivores that can consume a wide variety of foods and are frequently used in human medical research due to their biological similarities to humans.

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rjohn 7
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Pig

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

This article is about the genus. For other uses, see Pig (disambiguation).

Pig

Temporal range: Early Pleistocene to

recent

Bornean bearded pig at the London

Zoo

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Artiodactyla

Family: Suidae
Subfamily: Suinae

Genus: Sus
Linnaeus, 1758

Species

 See text

A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the even-toed


ungulate family Suidae. Pigs include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common
Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), along with other species. Pigs, like all suids, are native
to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands.
Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of Asia,
the warthog of Africa, and another genus of pigs from Africa. The suids are a sister
clade to peccaries.
Juvenile pigs are known as piglets.[1] Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals.[2]
With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is among the most
populous large mammals in the world.[3][4] Pigs are omnivores and can consume a wide
range of food.[5] Pigs are biologically similar to humans and are thus frequently used for
human medical research.[6]

Contents

 1Etymology
 2Description and behaviour
 3Distribution and evolution
 4Habitat and reproduction
 5Diet and foraging
 6Relationship with humans
o 6.1Use in human healthcare
 7Species
 8Domestic pigs
 9In culture
 10Environmental impacts
 11Health issues
 12See also
 13References
 14External links
Etymology
The Online Etymology Dictionary provides anecdotal evidence as well as linguistic,
saying that the term derives
probably from Old English *picg, found in compounds, ultimate origin unknown.
Originally "young pig" (the word for adults was swine). Apparently related to Low
German bigge, Dutch big ("but the phonology is difficult" -- OED). ... Another Old
English word for "pig" was fearh, related to furh "furrow," from PIE *perk- "dig, furrow"
(source also of Latin porc-us "pig," see pork). "This reflects a widespread IE tendency to
name animals from typical attributes or activities" [Roger Lass].
Synonyms grunter, oinker are from sailors' and fishermen's euphemistic avoidance of
uttering the word pig at sea, a superstition perhaps based on the fate of the Gadarene
swine, who drowned.[7]
The Online Etymology Dictionary also traces the evolution of sow, the term for a female
pig, through various historical languages:
Old English sugu, su "female of the swine," from Proto-Germanic *su- (cognates: Old
Saxon, Old High German su, German Sau, Dutch zeug, Old Norse syr), from PIE root
*su- (cognates: Sanskrit sukarah "wild boar, swine;" Avestan hu "wild
boar;" Greek hys "swine;" Latin sus "swine", suinus "pertaining to swine"; Old Church
Slavonic svinija "swine;" Lettish sivens "young pig;" Welsh hucc, Irish suig "swine; Old
Irish socc "snout, plowshare"), possibly imitative of pig noise; note that
Sanskrit sukharah means "maker of (the sound) su.[7]

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